Sleeping Through The Night

There are so many things in parenting that society judges us by, or so it seems. For babies, one of the most common questions that feels like stabby judgement is what I like to call The Question Of Dread - you know it: "So is he sleeping through the night yet?" Alternately: "Is she a good sleeper?/Is she a good baby?" As if a baby who doesn't sleep much is somehow misbehaving and "bad" or in need of discipline.

Now, I know in my mind that it's usually just a conversation point - it's not like someone is going to ask me if my 8 month old can read or ask about his latest endeavors in scientific advancement. There just aren't very many topics of polite conversation regarding babies and sleep is a universal. I get it. Still, it can feel an awful lot like they are really asking in order to categorize me as a good or bad parent. When the answer is "Oh, he's nursing every three hours or so, but I sleep through most all of it." part of me feels like I've just thrown my baby (my very very good baby, thank you) under the bus and gotten myself run over by it too.

Here's the thing, though, my child's sleep habits are not a reflection on my parenting and neither are yours. There are some babies who sleep through the night very early on, my dear dear friend has three children who all started sleeping 8-10 hours at 6 weeks old. There are some who sleep through the night at the published average of 3-6 months. There are some who won't sleep through the night for somewhere between six months old and significantly later. THEY ARE ALL NORMAL.

Your baby is an individual with individual needs. As long as you are listening and responding to those needs you are an excellent parent, talk yourself out of feeling judged when your answer to the Question of Dread is "Nope, not yet."

Quite the opposite of my friend mentioned above, I was blessed with three children with ..... excellent stamina. They are just not sleepers. For whatever reason that is not part of who they are - I can relate, I am also not a sleeper. After five years, I have finally come to terms with the reality here. The idea that we categorize babies who sleep a lot or readily are "good" and babies who do not are "bad" is inaccurate. The truth is that "good sleepers" are babies who are convenient for their parents and "bad sleepers" are less so. Maybe it makes me weird, but I did not choose to have babies for convenience nor did I expect motherhood to be convenient and so I should not be allowing a little inconvenience make me feel like I am doing a bad job. (Please do not be misled. I do totally whine when I get very little sleep - that doesn't make me a bad mom either.)

I recently had a friend ask me for how to get her 12 month old to sleep in her crib (without a night full of meltdowns) since keeping her in their bed was turning into an all night nursing session. There are some particular challenges that come when your baby doesn't sleep through the night on the early-ish side. A one year old is far more active when awake and can psyche themselves out of sleeping even when they are tired - while nursing or bouncing them to sleep was a great option when they were younger sometimes these options are not as feasible any more; or having a family bed is no longer what's best for your family and you'd like to encourage your child to sleep somewhere else. With some patience, ingenuity, patience, and more patience you will find what works best for your child.

The real key is thinking outside the box! If your baby has always needed some extra care and attention to get to sleep - don't expect her to be able to make an about face overnight. In fact, it may be years that she needs a little extra love at bed time. That is also TOTALLY NORMAL but it doesn't mean you can't transition her to her crib or get some alone adult time in the evenings. It does mean you need to get a little creative to get it done. In answer to my friend's question, these are some ideas for older babies:

• Bedtime routine then rock, sing, bounce her to sleep and I mean floppy/snoring/comatose asleep. When you think she's out wait 5 more minutes.Then set her down in her *warmed* bed. Use flannel sheets on her crib and warm them up with a hot water bottle or rice sock.  (If she usually falls asleep nursing in your bed, then get her asleep on a small blanket then transfer her on the blanket, Sea World dolphin transfer style, to keep a little more continuity for her) Since she's one, you could even use one of the pillowcases from your bed so her's smells familiar and comfortable. You can, ever so gradually, put her in her bed more awake until you lay her down awake and sing her to sleep then eventually sing to her and leave. 
• Bed time routine, then into bed sleepy but awake and sit next to her crib in the dark until she falls asleep. Add singing, reading, shushing as needed. Moving a little closer to the door every couple of nights until you are sitting in the doorway/hallway for her to fall asleep - eventually being able to put her in bed and remind her "I'm just outside the door" then leave the room
• Quit the crib. Babyproof her room (be meticulous!) and trade out her crib for a twin sized mattress on the floor. Treat this as you would your bed - however you get her to sleep in your bed do in her new bed (nurse, lay with your eyes closed, whatever) then when she's asleep get up and leave. Eventually easing her into laying down and going to sleep on her own. This has the added benefit of letting you lay and nurse her in her own bed in the middle of the night as she needs, then getting up and leaving, preventing her from nursing all night because she can. I would recommend getting a very good monitor so that her rustling will wake you up. 
• If you want to keep her in your bed, switch spots with your husband. Push the bed against a wall or get a bed rail - then, when she's asleep put your husband between you and the baby. Let him pat/sing/shush/cuddle her when she rustles and wants the comfort from nursing. 
• My babies did not really like food until they were around 18 months old, so they would wake up genuinely hungry at night and nurse not just for comfort. I wanted to mention that because "the books" would have you believe that no baby needs to eat at night after 6 months and that is simply not true. You know your baby, if it's hunger feed her - remember, she hasn't read the books, she doesn't know she "shouldn't" be hungry at night. 

There are plenty of other variations of "think outside the box" here - if none of the ones I listed fit the bill for your baby, I'm certain you can find what works. Just keep her/his needs in mind - most of all babies (of all ages) need you to hear and respond to their needs, to love them, and to make them feel safe and secure. You're all they've got and they don't read baby books. 

Don't let a non-stereotypically "good baby" (ugh) make you doubt yourself as a parent. If nothing else, then you get The Question of Dread just proudly respond "She/He's absolutely perfect, thank you!" because that's all they need to know.

12 Month Old Henry, sleeping. It did happen, sometimes.

So You Didn't Want To Know About: Car Seat Safety

Car seats...we all know we're supposed to use them, we aren't allowed to bring our babies home from the hospital without one. How many people, though, are regularly using their car seat restraints *properly*?

Car seats aren't magical devices that will keep a baby or child safe no matter how they are buckled. Their safety is directly related to how accurately we arrange and tighten the straps and buckles.

If you find that you've been doing it wrong, don't feel badly. It took me one and a half babies before I realized how many mistakes I was making. The more we know the better we do. I've found, particularly in this regard, I much prefer to swallow my pride and learn the right way than assume things will be fine. Learning the hard way that things aren't "fine" when it comes to car seats can be quite catastrophic.

What I think most expecting parents don't know (from my own experience and comments from an unofficial survey of first-time expecting parents when we were on our most recent hospital tour) is that the hospital does not teach you how to use your car seat. They won't let you leave without one but they cannot show you how to install the base or safely buckle your newborn into it. Of course, this is for liability reasons. In fact, one nurse tried to correct how I had buckled one of my babies and ended up giving me entirely backwards information. We would have all been better off if she hadn't offered any instruction.

If you want to be certain you've got it right take your car, an 18-20 inch tall baby doll if your baby has yet to arrive, and your car seat to your local car seat inspector (usually the police or fire department will have a few officers who have gone through extensive training) and have them show you the ropes. At the very least follow the basics below.

There are a lot more points about car seat safety, but for the sake of brevity I'm going to stick with the most common mistakes.

The safest place for a baby is rear facing in the center, back seat of your vehicle for a minimum of the first TWO years of his/her life**.  Read your carseat's manual to account for variances in placement. You need the seat (or the base if it's an infant carrier) to be properly leveled and very very snug. At the base where the carseat meets the bottom and back of the car's seat there should be less than one inch of wiggle room. The snugger the better! This should be checked very regularly as the straps can loosen up over time.

**Yes, TWO years. While not all states have adopted it to law, the national recommendation is no longer 1 year and 20 lbs because too many babies were being critically and fatally injured in crashes when forward facing. Rear facing is the safest way for children to ride in the car and they should stay rear facing for as long as possible. Some children are still able to rear face as four year olds. I know that their legs can look uncomfortable and some children are grumpy about not being able to see much, but in a crash the difference could be that of a sore/broken leg and a broken neck.

Buckle height is perhaps the most common mistake I see. Simply buckling the seat is not enough to keep your baby safe.

First get the shoulder straps properly adjusted: for rear facing babies that is at or below the height of the shoulders. Forward facings is at or above.

The buckle of a 5-point harness belongs at arm pit height, also sometimes referred to as nipple height. Not mid-rib cage, diaphragm, or waist height. Every centimeter below arm pit height the buckle is, your car seat gets less safe. With the buckle at waist height your child can be ejected from their car seat in the event of a crash! Put your baby in his/her seat and fasten the buckles then slide the buckle all the way up to arm pit height.

WAY WAY WAY too low

**STILL** too low! (I know, perhaps surprising but true nonetheless)

This is the right height! The sides of the buckle are pointing right at his armpit and is centered over nipple-height. However, it's still too loose - keep on reading...

Once you have the buckles in the right spot you can check the next thing, Strap Tension. Try to pinch the strap at your baby's shoulder.

(Sorry my pictures are wonky sizes, my editing software was freezing my computer so I circumvented)

On the left you can see there was enough slack to get a pinch of strap, that's too loose. Even though it looked decently tight, when we give it the pinch test we know better. On the right you see the strap is snug enough that I cannot pinch the strap (without also pinching the baby)

Car seat straps need to be snug. You should not be able to get a pinch of the strap. If you can get a grasp on the strap, tighten them! If the straps are loose your baby will endure the violent forces of a crash as their body is thrown against the straps. Alternately, with snug straps your baby's body is held to their car seat and moves with the forces of the crash. This minimizes the amount of damage to their bodies.

You want your baby to become one with the car seat. They should not be able to lean over for toys or fall forward/sideways when they fall asleep. If they move independently from the car seat in a crash they are far more likely to be injured.

 

Here he is! Snug and safe ... go ahead and ignore those pretzel crumbs on the ground, s'il vous plait

Nothing should go between your baby and their carseat beside a couple thin layers of clothing. No winter jackets, snow suits, or bundlers. No cushy strap covers or extra head rests. Car seats are tested for safety as they are sold - extra fabric can compress in a crash and leave too much wiggle room in the straps. The more the wiggle room the more harm that can be done to the baby in a crash. You can put winter coats back on backwards over the buckles - now your children are safe *and* warm. I find that heating up the car for a few minutes in the winter makes this much more pleasant in the Chicago winters.

If you want to know if your child's cold weather wear is thin enough, sit them in their seat and check the straps so that they are properly snug with the buckle at the proper height, now take them out of the seat and put their warm layers on. Try to buckle them back in. If you can secure them and get the buckle back to arm pit height without loosening the straps then you are good to go! If you're curious you can reverse this process and see just how much slack the straps would have in the event of a crash.

Here is Baby warm against but angry at the impending Chicago winter. Buckle is at the right height, I can't pinch the should strap at all. 

I took off the snow suit and rebuckled without changing the tension at all and you can see how much room there actually was! In a crash, his body would be shaken around as if the straps were virtually this loose (the snow suit cannot compress to nothing, but it would compress a lot)

When I first learned about the no-coats recommendation I did this and was *stunned!*  it seems so simple and logical once you know about it but I had never thought of it (until half-way through my middle child's second winter). The coats back-and-forth is an extra step to get all of us on the road but I think it's very worth it. (insert "The More You Know" shooting star and riff here)


If you want to research further (and I recommend you do, this only really covers buckling properly), The Car Seat Lady has some excellent videos on the subject and also goes into more depth on the dangers I've touched on here. She also fleshes out the type of seats available and which children they are best for. So scoot on over there - I highly recommend her information

These are all small thing that can be life saving measures - happy buckling!

****Standard disclaimers as outlined in my first post apply. I am not the boss of you, nor am I equipped to dictate what is best for your particular child. The information I share is not judgement or report card. Your baby, your life, your choice.****

So You Didn't Want To Know About: My Blog

Velkommen! Bienvenue! Welcome, chez mon avis! 

My irrepressible need to share information has finally overwhelmed my need to spend my recreational internet time on facebook, pinterest, and disney vacation message boards. See, I've known that normal people don't care to know all of the things that I care to know about for quite some time but have dismissed it. If only people knew what I've learned they would be overcome with my insatiable hunger for information (about everything besides politics thankyouverymuch)! 

Well - let's be honest. I'm kind of a weirdo. Real life doesn't revolve around primary research or mitigating statistical risk, and in real life people with an information-sharing problem like mine are kind of a nuisance. So I am indulging in a little solipsistic rambling. (What is the internet for if it isn't for vanity and patting one's self on the back?)

My current foci are all things parenting (pregnancy, birth, nursing, rearing) which are often hotly contended, mostly because parents feel tremendous pressure and judgement and very little affirmation. All I can offer is what I have chosen is best for *my* family and why. If you agree with my conclusion? Great. If you disagree? Great. You cannot live my life just as surely as I cannot live yours. We plug along doing our best in life and hoping and praying for God (or whatever power to which you ascribe - including the power of self) to fill in where we are lacking. 

Clear cut safety issues aside (I'm thinking proper car seat use) there are virtually no black-and-white parenting issues. Our lives are so diverse, and the weight that empirical evidence or professional opinion play in our decisions varies greatly, as it should. I am not here to make choices for you or brow beat you into making the same choices that were right for me.

I'm carving out time to write between feedings, floor puzzles, school pick ups, and snacks - there may or may not be adequate time for proof reading and I may or may not care. Let's let the previous sentence serve as a blanket apology to my inner grammar critic and yours. If I have to care about the perfect word choice and comma placement I will never get anything posted - then how will I share all of my opinions?!? T'would be a travesty!

Disclaimers set and out of the way - let's get into all those things you never wanted to know about in the first place (but I can't keep to myself)!

You're welcome to comment and tell me how awesome I am or leave a suggestion for something you *do* want to know about.